


Invitation Only

by Setcheti



Series: Masquerade [5]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Vin, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4349663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After yet another joint mission with the FBI almost gets Ezra killed, Chris and the others are frustrated by their inability to fix the situation. But Ezra has made plans of his own...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ezra woke up and immediately knew it had been a mistake.

His muscles ached, his head was throbbing, and his left shoulder felt like someone had tried to twist his arm off. Breathing was vaguely uncomfortable, swallowing infinitely more so; an ill-advised attempt to blink told him that something soft and cool and slightly damp was covering his eyes, both of which felt decidedly hot and swollen. His soft moan of protest at the whole situation sounded strangely muffled.

The near-inaudible sound did produce results, however; there was a rustle followed by the squeak of metal against linoleum, and then a warm hand curled around his right arm. “Ez? Pard, you back with us?”

_Vin_. Ezra relaxed slightly; he wasn’t alone. He tried to swallow again and grimaced. “B-back?”

Another rustle, closer this time, and then a slight pressure he hadn’t been aware of lifted away from his face. Something pressed gently against his lips. “Here, open up; this’ll help.” He opened his mouth and a scant spoonful of crushed ice was deposited on his tongue. This time the moan was of relief as melted liquid trickled down his painfully sore throat. He heard Vin chuckle. “Better?”

“Much,” Ezra sighed. He swallowed again experimentally and winced in spite of himself. “Vin?”

The plastic spoon came back with more ice. “You’re gonna be okay, Ez,” the sharpshooter said softly. “You remember what happened?” Ezra thought about it and gingerly shook his head; he remembered being in the warehouse, recalled facing the smug arms dealer with a smile as the deal went down exactly as planned…and past that nothing but a choking white fog and a sense of panic. The panic must have showed in his face, because Vin’s hands were suddenly cradling his head and the voice was much closer, right above him. He realized he was gasping for air. “Breathe, Ez,” Vin ordered worriedly. “Calm down, you’re all right now. Just breathe.”

Ezra reached up blindly and grabbed a handful of the other man’s jacket, clutching at the worn leather like a lifeline as he tried to get his breathing back under control. “Fog,” he gasped. “White fog.”

He heard Vin curse, and one of the callused hands moved down to the center of his heaving chest and began to rub soothing circles. “Tear gas,” the other man corrected, a thread of anger underlying his gentle tone. “Chris told them not to use it but they wouldn’t listen, said they had to be sure nothin’ went wrong with the bust ‘cause they needed the guy alive to testify. Heads are gonna roll over this, Ez, don’t you worry; careless bastards damn near killed you.”

Ezra nodded, letting the younger man’s reassuring touch ease him again. “Shock?”

“Yeah, anaphalic-whatever; you’re damned allergic to those new gas grenades. Only been breathin’ on your own for about an hour now.” The hand on his chest stilled. “Doc says you’ll be fine with a few days rest, the swellin’ in your eyes should be down by tomorrow mornin’ and then they’ll let you go home in a day or so. Ya want some more ice?”

“Please.” He sucked on the melting mouthful thoughtfully, then almost choked on it as he remembered something else. “Juliet!”

“She’s here,” Vin reassured him. “JD’s gonna try to get a copy of the hospital security tape for us so we can show ya what she did to the FBI bastard they sent down; you’ll have to translate for us, though, ‘cause she started speakin’ that gutter-Cajun real fast and Josiah couldn’t hardly follow her. Chris damn near laughed himself sick, said she was gonna be our FBI liaison from now on ‘cause she’s the only one who’s ever got the desired results—that bastard ran out of here like a scalded dog.”

The undercover agent could just imagine; there was no love lost between his fiancée and the federal agency that had almost destroyed his life—more than once, now. A smile tugged at the corners of Ezra’s mouth. “Where…?”

“Josiah and Chris took her down to get somethin’ to eat,” the sharpshooter said. “She didn’t want to go, but they told her it was either walk or be carried. Don’t worry, Ez, we’re takin’ care of her for ya.”

“Didn’t doubt it.” Sleep was already pulling at him again. “Everyone else…okay?”

“Yep, not even a scratch.” The chuckle was back. “Go back to sleep, Ez.”

And it sounded like such a good idea that he did.


	2. Chapter 2

Late the next morning, Vin pulled his battered Jeep into the hospital parking lot and wondered if somewhere inside there was a doctor who knew how to kill a troll – or at least how to shut one up. Nathan had climbed up on top of his bridge an hour earlier when he’d realized that the only person at the hospital watching Ezra was Juliet, who the chemist swore ‘didn’t know how to handle the man’ and would ‘likely let him get away with anything’. A call to Ezra’s room from the office hadn’t been answered and was therefore seen as proof that Nathan was right – well, seen that way by Nathan, anyway. To say everyone in the office had been disturbed by the idea of Nathan charging down to the hospital by himself would have been a gross understatement, so the sharpshooter had quickly volunteered to drive him. Vin didn’t really fault the ex-paramedic for being worried, because they were all worried; what he held against him was that Nathan tended to express his concern by becoming a bully. He’d done it to Vin two months before when he’d wrenched his knee during a bust, and that’s when Vin had decided that Nathan was a troll – a particularly nasty bridge troll, to be precise. Ezra had found the characterization funny at the time, but Vin doubted that either he or Juliet would be laughing about it today – especially if Nathan used his medical background to throw his weight around with Ezra’s doctors and nurses. Vin intended to stick with the man every second to make sure that didn’t happen.

Nathan had ranted softly under his breath during the drive to the hospital and now all the way up to Ezra’s room. When the two men reached the room and found it empty the muttering became a louder diatribe. “See, I told you she’d give in to him! I bet the damn stubborn fool is signed out AMA right now and on his way back to the condo, laughin’ his damn ass off!”

“His stuff’s still here,” Vin said quietly, but with a slight edge to his voice. “His chart’s still here, too - don’t say nothin’ about him bein’ signed out.”

“Then he just took off!”

A nurse appeared at the door, drawn by the noise. “Oh, are you gentlemen looking for Mr. Standish? I’m afraid he won’t be back for at least an hour…”

Vin pushed himself away from the wall and did his best not to smirk at the open-mouthed chemist. “Could you tell us where he went, ma’am? We were kinda worried about him, didn’t think he was up to leavin’ just yet.”

“Well, he didn’t exactly leave unattended,” she said. “He said he had an appointment that had to be kept, and after he and his fiancée talked with the doctor the three of them left together.”

Nathan was even more shocked. “His doctor went too? He went along with this?”

She nodded. “They took his car. He told the front desk that he would be at Children’s if anything came up.”

“I wonder what that slick Southern…” Nathan must have seen the flicker of warning in Vin’s blue eyes because he swallowed the rest of what he’d been going to say. The ex-paramedic was well aware that he was still on shaky interpersonal ground as far as the team’s sharpshooter was concerned, and he didn’t want to find out what would happen if he pushed Vin too far. “What could they be doin’ over there, do you have any idea?”

“Nope.” Vin smoothed the rumpled blanket with one hand, hiding a smirk; Nathan was learning, he just didn’t always learn too fast. “Know about the volunteer time he puts in over there, but I don’t think his doctor would have drove him over just for that.” The look on the chemist’s face spoke volumes and Vin sighed; he was curious too. “Okay, I reckon we can hop on over there and see what’s up – Chris is gonna want to know too.”

Nathan’s soft muttering started up again as soon as they hit the elevator, but this time Vin wasn’t going for it. “Ain’t polite to talk to yourself when someone else is with ya,” he drawled. The chemist shut up with a startled look and Vin’s grin became almost impossible to hold back – but he managed all the way to Children’s Hospital. The nurse at the front desk was able to tell them that Dr. Barrett and Mr. Standish were upstairs on Seven and directed them to the appropriate elevator.

The doors slid open on a fair sized open area comprised of pale blue walls and white linoleum floor with a nurses’ station dominating the right hand side and a set of double doors whose windows were blocked by vertical blinds on the left. A few chairs of the standard uncomfortable hospital variety were lined up beside the doors, and another door was set into the far wall beside a large bulletin board liberally covered with flyers, cards, children’s drawings and assorted notices. Not a nurse was in sight, but the two men guessed that their arrival must have set off some sort of signal because the far door opened almost immediately and Ezra’s physician from the hospital, Dr. Barrett, came out. He frowned when he saw them. “Let me guess, you came looking for your teammate, right?”

“Got kind of worried when we found his room empty,” Vin told him before Nathan could say anything. “Just wanted to make sure everything was okay, we hadn’t thought he was okay to leave yet.”

“He’s not,” was Barrett’s reply. “And he’ll be going right back there when he’s done here, don’t worry – I’m not discharging him until tomorrow.” He made a face. “You can’t stay out here and I need to be where I can watch things. I’ll let you come in with us for a few minutes, if that will ease your mind. But keep your voices down and your comments to yourselves.”

“We can do that,” Vin replied. “Is Julie doin’ okay?”

Dr. Barrett smiled at him tiredly. “She’s hanging in there, but it’s been a long few days. Come on.” He ushered the two men through the door he’d just come out of and into a small room which at one end was fitted with a large two-way mirror. “Juliet, looks like we were followed,” he said quietly to the small woman standing near the window but not touching it. “I can have them escorted out if you want me to.”

Juliet turned around and glanced at the two men, exchanging a long look with Vin. Then she shook her head and sighed. “No, it’s okay; they won’t cause any trouble. They’re just worried about Ezra.”

Vin responded to the weariness in her voice by closing the distance between them and putting a comforting arm around her shoulders as he took a look through the window into the room beyond. There were nine children in the room, most of them looking shockingly ill, and Ezra was sitting in a wheelchair near two beds whose small occupants obviously couldn’t come to him. Another child was perched on the undercover agent’s lap with one skinny arm around his neck and hairless head tucked against the man’s shoulder. It looked like Ezra was reading them a story, and Vin had to wonder how much it was hurting his friend’s abused throat to do it.

Nathan, on the other hand, was wondering why the doctor had let Standish come here for what looked like a purely social visit. In his eyes the portable oxygen unit on the wheelchair Ezra was sitting in meant the undercover agent should have been told quite firmly that he was staying put in his hospital bed no matter what he wanted to the contrary. _You’d think someone else could do this, he sure don’t have to be here today – after all, someone else does it when he’s undercover_ …

After a few more minutes the story was over. Ezra pushed himself as close to the beds as he could get so the children there could touch him while the others crowded around for hugs and gentle pats, careful of the oxygen tubing in a way healthy children wouldn’t think to be. Through it all the skinny bald little boy remained curled up in Ezra’s lap, and the two of them had a quiet and apparently heartfelt conversation that terminated in a strangling hug before the Southerner wheeled the boy back to his bed and the nurse who had unobtrusively been keeping watch over the little group stepped forward to tuck the sick child back in.

Ezra started to wheel himself out, but the nurse took hold of the back of his chair before he could get started. “I don’t think so, Mr. Standish; your doctor said no more exertion than necessary - and since I’m here, this isn’t necessary.”

“Oh very well, if you must.” Ezra winked and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation for the children, but the look he gave the nurse was purely grateful as he sank back in the chair again. “Push away, my dear.”

Juliet was out of the small room like a shot, but Dr. Barrett held Vin and Nathan back with a quick shake of his head when they made to follow. “Wait,” he cautioned quietly. “He’ll need a few minutes, just don’t say anything.”

The two men nodded and slipped out of the room in his wake, not understanding but going along with him anyway. The nurse had already pushed Ezra’s chair through the double doors, and Juliet hurried to her fiance’s side. “Ezra?”

The undercover agent’s cheerful façade had already fallen off. He turned still-swollen red-rimmed eyes up to her, and when Juliet put her arms around him Ezra buried his face in her shoulder and cried like a child. The nurse had withdrawn to a discreet distance, and Nathan asked her in a low voice, “Does it always affect him like this? Goin’ in to see those kids?”

The nurse shook her head. “No, it’s just that…well, Tommy is going home today.”

She sounded upset, which confused the two ATF agents. “But, isn’t that a good thing?” Vin wanted to know.

“Couldn’t Ez have gone to see him at home some other time?” Nathan demanded with some irritation. “Why’d you let him come down here…”

“Tommy is going home to die, gentlemen,” Dr. Barrett qualified softly, looking at Vin and not at Nathan. His trained ear heard his patient’s sobs take on a gasping quality and he closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, turning up the volume on the portable oxygen unit before dropping down to one knee. “Ezra?” he called softly, one hand squeezing the man’s trembling shoulder. “Ezra, you need to breathe, all right? Try to take a nice slow breath for me if you can.”

Juliet’s small slender hand began to stroke her fiance’s back in a soothing rhythm. “He’s trying,” she told the doctor. “It’s all right, Ezra, just relax. Breathe along with me…”

“Good idea,” Barrett said. He kept his hand on Ezra’s shoulder until he felt the trembling cease and the man’s breathing even back out to an acceptable rhythm, and then he and Juliet pulled Ezra back upright in the wheelchair and resettled him. The doctor accepted the Kleenex the hovering nurse held out to him and oh-so-carefully blotted the wetness away from his patient’s still-sensitive eyes, which were still tightly closed. “Ezra, I’m going to put your sunglasses back on now, it’s time to head back. I know you said you didn’t want to still be here when Tommy’s parents came to get him…”

“Don’t…want to intrude,” Ezra rasped, shaking his head. “Ever minute they have with him now…precious beyond measure.”

“I fully agree with you.” Barrett carefully slid the sunglasses into place, then stood up and checked the oxygen again; Juliet stood as well, keeping hold of Ezra’s hand. She shot a look at Vin, who smiled understandingly and mimed sealing his lips, receiving a grateful look of relief in return. Barrett nodded to him as well and then whisked his patient into the elevator without a word.

As soon as the elevator doors had closed the nurse, who had moved to the counter and been pretending to study a chart, relaxed. “Thank you,” she told the two ATF agents.

Vin shook his head. “I’m just glad he didn’t notice we were here. Didn’t know it would be like this, didn’t mean to intrude.”

“I didn’t want to intrude either,” Nathan added. He shook his head. “That damn stubborn Southern fool…”

To his surprise, an expression of compounded fury and disgust crossed Vin’s face and he at once began to stalk toward the elevator; when Nathan started to follow the sharpshooter turned on him with a glare worthy of Chris Larabee. “You can _meet_ me at the Jeep,” he growled. “You’ve told us all that takin’ the stairs is healthier for ya, I’d say that this time you’re most likely right.” He paused, though, beside the staring nurse and held out his hand. “Want to thank you for lookin’ after my friend,” he told her sincerely. “I was glad to see you guys don’t think he’s just gettin’ in your way, these kids mean an awful lot to him.”

“Ezra means a lot to everyone here,” the nurse replied, taking the offered hand; she’d been giving Nathan an unfriendly look of her own, but it cleared away when she smiled at Vin. “I’m guessing you must be one of his friends, Mr…?”

“Tanner, Vin Tanner.” The Texan smiled back and released her hand. He jerked his head in Nathan’s direction. “Didn’t mean to cause a scene here.”

She winked at him. “No harm done – there aren’t any parents up here right now. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tanner.”

“Likewise,” he glanced at her nametag, “Alice. And it’s just Vin.” His scowl came back when he saw the look on Nathan’s face. “Stairs are that way, Nate,” he said, pointing. “We’d best get out of these people’s way, and I need to call in and let Chris know what’s goin’ on.”

 

Vin called Chris from the elevator, letting him know that Ezra was all right and promising to give him a full report once he got back to the office. He didn’t mention Nathan, but the omission spoke volumes to Chris. “Do I want to know?”

“Prob’ly not,” the sharpshooter told him. “But he’s about one more word away from takin’ a cab back to the office. He’s takin’ the stairs now, told him it’d be more healthy for him.”

Chris sighed; he’d been afraid of this. “I’d like it better if you two came back together,” he said, not quite making it an order. “I’ll expect you both back here in half an hour.”

He knew Vin had nodded without having to see it. “Okay, in thirty. Make some decent coffee before I get back, will ya?”

“Did you forget who the boss around here was – again?” Chris asked him. He was relieved, though; if there was going to be a problem, Vin wouldn’t be joking with him. “And the pot you made this morning is still where you left it, anyway. Assuming it hasn’t eaten its way out.”

“At least mine has a kick to it. I’ll see you in thirty.”

Chris just looked at the phone after Vin disconnected and shook his head.   He’d dismissed the idea of there being a problem too soon; the sharpshooter had hung up before their ritual coffee joke was finished. “Yours would kick a dead guy awake,” he murmured.


End file.
